"In a single gap, Fast froze together other two I saw, So that one head was his companion's cap: And as a famished man a crust might gnaw, So gnawed the upper one the wretch beneath, Just where the neck-bone's marrow joins the brain: Not otherwise did Tydeus fix his teeth On Menalippus' temples in disdain. While thus he mumbled skull and hair and all, I cried: 'Ho! thou who show'st such bestial hate Of him on whom thy ravenous teeth so fall, Why feedest thou thus? On this agreement state: That, if thou have good reason for thy spite, Knowing you both, and what his crime was, I Up in the world above may do thee right, Unless the tongue I talk with first grow dry.' From his foul feast that sinner raised his jaw, Wiping it on the hair, first, of the head Whose hinder part his craunching had made raw. Then thus: 'Thou wouldst that I renew,' he said, 'The agony which still my heart doth wring, In thought even, ere a syllable I say; But if my words may future harvest bring To the vile traitor here on whom I prey Of infamy, then thou shalt hear me speak, And see my tears too. I know not thy mien, Nor by what means this region thou dost seek; But by thy tongue thou'rt sure Florentine. Know then, Count Ugolino once was I, And this Archbishop Ruggieri: fate Makes us close neighbors--I will tell thee why. 'Tis needless all the story to relate, How through his malice, trusting in his words, I was a prisoner made and after slain. But that whereof thou never canst have heard, I mean how cruelly my life was ta'en, Thou shalt hear now, and thenceforth know if he Have done me wrong. A loophole in the mew Which hath its name of Famine's Tower from me, And where his doom some other yet must rue, Had shown me now already through its cleft Moon after moon, when that ill dream I dreamed Which from futurity the curtain reft. He, in my vision, lord and master seemed, Hunting the wolf and wolf-cubs on the height Which screeneth Lucca from the Pisan's eye: With eager hounds, well trained and lean and light, Gualandi and Lanfranchi darted by, With keen Sismondi--these the foremost went; But after some brief chase, too hardly borne, The sire and offspring seemed entirely spent, And by sharp fangs their bleeding sides were torn. When before morn from sleep I raised my head, I heard my boys, in prison there with me, Moaning in slumber and demanding bread. If thou weep not, a savage thou must be: Nay, if thou weep not, thinking of the fear My heart foreboded, canst thou weep at aught? Now they woke also, and the hour was near When used our daily pittance to be brought. His dream made each mistrustful; and I heard The door of that dread tower nailed up below: Then in my children's eyes, without a word,